“The proof I require is that you should ask something of me.”
“Ask?”
“Oh, I know you well,- no one is more disinterested, more noble, more truly royal.”
“Do not praise me too highly, Madame,” said the duchess, becoming uneasy.
“I could never praise you as much as you deserve to be praised.”
“And yet, age and misfortune effect a great change in people, Madame.”
“So much the better; for the beautiful, the haughty, the adored duchess of former days might have answered me ungratefully, ‘I do not wish for anything from you.’ Blessed be misfortunes, if they have come to you, since they will have changed you, and you will now perhaps answer me, ‘I accept.'”
The duchess’s look and smile became more gentle; she was under the charm, and no longer concealed her wishes.
“Speak, dearest!” said the Queen; “what do you want?”
“I must first explain to you-”
“Do so unhesitatingly.”
“Well, then, your Majesty can confer on me a pleasure unspeakable, a pleasure incomparable.”
“What is it?” said the Queen, a little distant in her manner, from an uneasiness of feeling produced by this remark. “But do not forget, my good Chevreuse, that I am quite as much under my son’s influence as I was formerly under my husband’s.”
“I will not be too hard, Madame.”
“Call me as you used to do; it will be a sweet echo of our happy youth.”
“Well, then, my dear mistress, my darling Anne-”
“Do you know Spanish still?”
“Yes.”
“Ask me in Spanish, then.”
“Here it is: Will your Majesty do me the honor to pass a few days with me at Dampierre?”
“Is that all?” said the Queen, stupefied.
“Yes.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“Good Heavens! Can you possibly imagine that in asking you that, I am not asking you the greatest conceivable favor? If that really be the case, you do not know me. Will you accept?”
“Yes, gladly. And I shall be happy,” continued the Queen, with some suspicion, “if my presence can in any way be useful to you.”
“Useful,” exclaimed the duchess, laughing,- “oh, no, no! agreeable, delicious, delightful,- yes, a thousand times yes! You promise me, then?”
“I swear it,” said the Queen, whereupon the Duchess seized her beautiful hand and covered it with kisses. The Queen could not help murmuring to herself, “She is a good-hearted woman, and very generous too.”
“Will your Majesty consent to wait a fortnight before you come?”
“Certainly; but why?”
“Because,” said the duchess, “knowing me to be in disgrace, no one would lend me the hundred thousand crowns which I require to put Dampierre in a state of repair. But when it is known that I require that sum for the purpose of receiving your Majesty at Dampierre properly, all the money in Paris will be at my disposal.”
“Ah!” said the Queen, gently nodding her head with an air of intelligence, “a hundred thousand crowns! you want a hundred thousand crowns to put Dampierre into repair?”
“Quite as much as that.”
“And no one will lend them to you?”
“No one.”
“I will lend them to you, if you like, Duchess.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t dare to accept!”
“You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hundred thousand crowns is really not much. I know but too well that your discreetness has never been properly acknowledged. Push that table a little towards me, Duchess, and I will write you an order on M. Colbert,- no, on M. Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and obliging man.”
“Will he pay it?”
“If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me.”
The Queen wrote and handed the duchess the order, and afterwards dismissed her with a warm and cheerful embrace.
Chapter VI: How Jean de la Fontaine Wrote His First Tale
ALL these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so complicated in its exhibitions, has developed itself freely in the three outlines which our recital has afforded. It is not unlikely that in the future we are now preparing, politics and intrigues may still appear; but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings,- just as at a theatre, where a Colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework.